The Distress of All Creatures: Warning: Disturbing to animal lovers

Captain, Vancouver, B.C.

On the news, I see them
wheel you out:
beaten, defeated German Shepherd,
intense suffering in your eyes.
And my heart stops.
I have to turn the tv off.
I cannot bear
that some messed up human
has taken his anger out
on you, defenseless boy.

Oh, Captain! My Captain!
The world is cruel.

The second part of this story
is that the same man
just killed his mother.

On the same newscast,
Wolf Number Two
has been killed on our coast.
Skinny, hungry, in search of food,
he wandered into "our" territory
and paid with his life.

And Site C dam in the Peace
will not be re-routed around
First Nations gravesites.
It should not be built at all,
but capitalism only knows
one way forward, has
only one bottom-line.

One needs to be fortified
with protection, these days,
to watch the evening news.

Oh, Captain, your suffering face,
those pain-filled eyes,
the face of all the suffering
of all the innocents of this world,
brings me to tears.


Four years ago, Captain the German Shepherd was beaten viciously and left for dead by his mentally ill "owner". He was still alive when responders wheeled him out. They tried to save him. It was shown on the news again last night  because the same man has now been charged with murdering his mother.

It's getting so my heart can't take the pain of the nightly news. Especially when it comes to animals, who are at our mercy. And we have so little of it to give.


source: CBC News